A Pox on You, and the Demigod You Walked in With
by Mission to Marzipan
Summary: In which what seems like a normal rescue mission actually ends up sucking pretty hard for Nico when Persephone gets meddling. Cinderella's step-mom has got nothing on Nico's.
1. Chapter 1

**Well, it's edging towards three in the morning. Where else would I be put posting here? Heh. This was originally going to be a oneshot, but I think I'll make it a two-parter now, because it might have ended up a little unwieldy had it just been a oneshot. I own nothing from the PJO world, and I would like to inform any lawyers reading (although, seriously, start reading some law books or something: this is a waste of your life if you're a lawyer) that I have just spent three years and thousands of pounds completing a fairly useless degree, and so all I have to give should you sue me is this laptop. Which is covered with apple stickers and has a frayed power cord that is a BAD IDEA to touch. So really, no one gains from a law suit. Anyway, enjoy, do not enjoy, the review button will let me know either way. ;) I know what needs to happen in Part Deux, I just need to write it... Should probably get on that, no?**

**Mission to Marzipan out.**

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* * *

**It was good to be back in the sunshine. It was beating down out of the wide arc of brilliant blue above her and glittering on the huge swathe of turquoise sea that spread out into the distance. The lightest of breezes whispered in palm fronds above her head. Persephone was lying on a sun lounger in a new mortal form she was trying out. She was tall and lithe with a perfect tan and a head of thick blonde hair piled carelessly yet artfully up at the back of her head. One perfectly-manicured hand was caressing the soft sand absently and the other was wrapped around a mojito. It was the first day of spring, the first day she had been allowed back in the Overworld after her six month stint as Queen of the Underworld (or 'downstairs' as her mother still delicately referred to it even after all these years) and she was loving the tingling of the sunlight on her bare stomach. She inhaled deeply, drawing in the intoxicating perfume of the enormous pink flower behind her ear and let the breath out in a contented sigh. Hello, spring. Yet another mortal man walking past, this one holding a woman's hand, and practically tripped over himself at the sight of her lying full-length in the sun in a tiny white bikini. His girlfriend glanced in her direction, sneered and started dragging him faster along the beach, bickering with him. Oh, the Overworld. How she'd missed it.

Grain suddenly burst out of the air next to her sun lounger and she let out a startled shriek, spilling her mojito over the sand as her mother appeared. Persephone huffed in irritation and sat up, folding her arms across her chest and cocking an eyebrow at Demeter, who was blocking her sun.

"Can't a goddess have five minutes to enjoy the freedom of springtime?" Persephone snapped. "I haven't seen the sun in six months, mother."

"I was just wondering where you were, that is all," Demeter sniffed, sounding a little hurt as she plonked herself down unceremoniously on the end of the sun lounger, almost tipping it up. "One would think it was common courtesy to visit your mother after being away for so long."

"You've been visiting _me_ constantly. _All winter_. That really irritates Hades, by the way, and you try living with a grouchy King of the Underworld. Not fun," Persephone sniped back, waving a hand and filling her mojito back up again. She picked it up and took a long drag in through the straw.

"Well, I amm sorry if I thought you might like a sweater or two," Demeter said stiffly, smoothing her dress over her knees. "It just seems so chilly down there."

"Mother, really, how many thousand years has it been now?" Persephone asked tiredly, barely concealing her irritation. "I would like to think I'm as used to it by now as I'll ever be."

Demeter pursed her lips but said nothing. After a short pause, she changed the subject. "Aren't you a little far from home?" she asked pointedly, almost as if she was just noticing her surroundings.

"It's Honolulu, mother. Hawaii. It's been a state for like five decades, which is quite a while in mortal terms. We're still in America, still protected by the fact that we're within the boundaries of Olympus. This is like our backyard. Seems perfectly safe to me, no?"

"Well, if you are going to be like that then I will leave you alone," Demeter said, standing up again. "I am only your mother and I am only concerned about you, after all. I just came to see you because I missed you. Also, it seems like half my mortal children have the chickenpox and I am fed up with illness."

"Chickenpox?" Persephone asked. "Their… poultry are ill?"

Demeter snorted. "Don't you pay any attention to the mortal world, child? The chickenpox is some kind of highly-contagious mortal disease that makes them itchy, spotty and ill. It is not fatal but it is so unattractive to look at I sometimes wonder if death wouldn't be kinder when I have to look at them. At least then they get buried out of sight and they are Hades' problem. But you know what? It's fine. Do not trouble yourself about it. I will just go and suffer by looking at some sick children if it will please you. Do not worry about me at all." She vanished in another shower of grain and Persephone sighed, pinching the bridge of her perfectly-formed nose. Mortals were lucky. Their parents died off after a few decades. Demeter, on the other hand, was immortal and would be plaguing her until the end of time itself. Why on Olympus did her mother assume that she wanted to know about children with the turkeypox or whatever it was, for crying out loud? What possible use could that be to her?

Unless…

She smiled as the first inklings of a plan began to form in her head. Well, a goddess might as well make the most of being back, right?

* * *

Nico did not need Rachel Elizabeth Dare's face appearing out of the rainbow the steam in his bathroom was making. Especially not given that he had just got out of the shower and was naked save for a towel around his waist, a towel that suddenly seemed ridiculously tiny. He spluttered in shock, his mouth working open and closed but no sound coming out. Not cool. Iris connecting you when you were in the freaking bathroom? Weren't there rules? Boundaries? IM etiquette? This was not what he needed right now, coming back to his cabin sweaty and aching from sword-fighting practise and wanting nothing more than to get into a long hot shower in a bathroom that did not include a certain redheaded heiress staring at him.

Rachel cocked her head serenely. "Finally. You do know that you sing in the shower, right? If I had to put up with another Journey medley I'd have blown my prophesising brains right out onto the wall behind me."

"And then sold it as modern art, right?" Nico returned dryly, the chance to shoot off a smartass remark bringing his voice flying back. He dug his fingers deeper into the top of the towel in case it decided to spontaneously leap off his hips, fighting back a blush.

"Hey, the public wants what it wants," Rachel said with a shrug. "So, I couldn't help but notice that you completely sidestepped the whole Journey thing. Is this how we're going to handle that from now on?"

"Let's just remind you who here has a big say on what happens to your immortal soul and move on so I can grab some pants."

"I agree," Rachel said. "Let's do that. I prefer you in pants."

When Nico returned to the bathroom about ten minutes later, drying his hair vigorously and having thrown on some jeans and a t-shirt, he had to turn the hot water in the shower back on to replenish the steam the message was using. Rachel was rapidly fading from view, but as the steam billowed out of the shower the image returned to full strength. She had moved: she was no longer standing up but sitting Indian style on a beanbag and intent on scrawling a design on her wrist with a pink sharpie. Nico cleared his throat loudly and she looked up.

"Fully clothed. Excellent," Rachel said approvingly, capping the sharpie and leaning forward. "Will you find Percy for me?"

"You got me out of the shower because you couldn't find Percy?" Nico asked disbelievingly. "Well, gee, thanks. That's not at all irritating and unnecessary. Also: you really know how to make a guy feel special."

"If it helps, you were actually the third choice after Annabeth," Rachel said brightly. "And also, hey, you got out of the shower of your own accord. I was just waiting here. Can you just go and get them so you can save the demigod I saw? She's going to be in big trouble anytime now."

"Well, seeing as you asked so nicely…" Nico muttered reluctantly. "What do we need to do?"

Rachel grinned devilishly at him. "Well, first of all, Nico, I just want to say that you're right. You should _never _stop believin'."

Nico glared at her. "This is the final call for Ms. Dare to board the Express Train to Tartarus, that's the Express Train to Tartarus for Ms. Elizabeth Dare," he snapped pointedly.

"It's not a coach ticket, is it?" Rachel asked with a pained expression, scratching the back of her neck with the pen.

"Coach is the _only way_ to get there," Nico told her darkly.

Rachel sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I take it back. But, just for the record, Percy would have found that funny. That's why I wanted him first."

"By the time you get to the point, this demigod is going to bed dead," Nico groused, sitting down hard on the edge of the bathtub and folding his arms. It was getting uncomfortably humid in the bathroom now he was fully-clothed and the hot water was running. "Today would be nice?"

"I was getting there, okay? Look, she's a daughter of Demeter and is kind of lost in New York City. I wrote down the street name I saw somewhere…" She began searching around the beanbag, lifting up the edges to check underneath. "Oh! Wait. This wasn't where I was when I had my vision. Hold on." She wandered out of the edge of the Iris message and disappeared.

Nico sighed again. At least _he_ wasn't paying for this call…

* * *

The last of the April sun was rapidly sinking out of sight, not that Percy and Annabeth were paying much attention to it. They were holed up behind the boathouse. Percy could feel the warmth of the wooden wall behind him through his Camp T-shirt, although the dirt he was sitting on was making his butt damp as it soaked through his jeans. Annabeth was sat on his outstretched legs with her hand under his shirt, gently running her fingers over the small of his back. That vulnerable spot of Percy's, the one that kept him anchored to the mortal world, had been caused by thinking of her as he was sinking to the bottom of the River Styx. She, Annabeth Chase, was the one thing that had tethered Percy to his mortality, and ever since he had told her about the spot it had held a certain fascination for her. She idly traced a finger round and round in circles on it as Percy grinned at her. He reached up to unwind the rubber band she was using to hold her hair in its ponytail.

"You kicked ass today, you know that?" he said, letting her hair loose and watching it tumble forwards to frame her face. "Did I mention that I love it when you kick ass?"

"Funny, because _I_ love it when I kick _your_ ass," Annabeth replied, returning his smile.

"Like you could. Invincible, remember?" Percy bragged, gently running his fingers through the tangle that she was calling her hair, scooping it behind her ears.

Annabeth jabbed him in the small of his back with her finger warningly. "Hey, I'm in the know, remember?" She let her hand glide up his back, then withdrew it rapidly. "Oh, gross. You're all sweaty."

"I'm not the only one. And should I be worried that you're going to stab me in the back?" Percy asked with fake concern. "That would be kind of harsh."

"Well, you can be pretty insufferable," Annabeth said. "So who knows? Try me."

Percy smiled crookedly at her. "Pass. I'm not feeling being dead," he said, leaning forwards and plucking a kiss from her mouth, letting his teeth graze against her bottom lip as he moved backwards.

"Knock knock," came a loud interruption, along with accompanying hammering on the side of the boathouse. Nico was leaning casually against the corner of the building with his arms folded, surveying them with mild interest. "Can you two please get up before I puke? We have work to do."

Annabeth scrambled off Percy's lap and stood up, huffing a sigh to cover her embarrassment and hurriedly gathering her hair back into a ponytail. She held out her hand wordlessly and Percy placed the rubber band in it.

"How did you find us?" Percy asked disappointedly, heaving himself to his feet reluctantly.

Nico's face contorted in disgust. "Ugh. To be honest, I noticed the way you were looking at Annabeth after she kicked the Stoll brothers' asses. Figured this was where you'd be after _that_ look." He paused "Well, what do you know? That didn't help with the nausea."

Annabeth wrenched her ponytail back into place. "So even though you'd figured out what we'd be doing you just decided to stalk us for the fun of it?" she mumbled through the rubber band, which was temporarily in her mouth. She took it out and used it to tie her hair back up. "Gross. Gross and creepy."

"Yeah, because this is freaking hilarious," Nico returned, deadpan. "No, Rachel's been trying to contact you. I guess you've been… engaged. There's another demigod in trouble."

"Where?" Annabeth asked, clearing her throat and running her fingers through the knotted mane of her ponytail. She smacked Percy's hand as it snaked around her hip, jerking her head at Nico.

Nico just cocked his eyebrow in her direction, letting his eyes linger on the hickey on her neck long enough for her to slap a hand to it and rub at it faux-casually, as if she were trying to massage it back into the flesh. He grinned at her. "New York City, baby."

"Yeah, don't do that," Annabeth told him, shaking her head and looking at him distastefully. "What was that, where did you get that from?"

Nico scowled. "Mean."

Percy interrupted them by taking the cap off Riptide. The pen ballooned into its sword-form and he tested the balance of the blade, still revelling in the fact that it was totally perfect, as always. "Okay, can we do this?" he asked. "We've got a demigod to save."

* * *

Percy and Annabeth were holding hands as they walked down the street. Rain was threatening in the air, so Annabeth had a beanie jammed over her head and Percy had stopped to get a jacket. Their heads were inclined towards each other, and they were murmuring quietly between them as Nico stormed on ahead, trying his best to ignore them. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his own jacket and bent his head slightly against the chilly wind blowing in off the water. To vent his irritation, he kicked moodily out at a polystyrene cup emblazoned with the Starbucks logo. It skittered off the kerb and into the road, where it was promptly flattened by a city bus. A sheet of newspaper came bowling through the jungle of pedestrian feet in front of him to smack wetly onto his shin, the wind wrapping it around his leg. He growled angrily and kicked it off, already hating this stupid quest. Percy and Annabeth had been rating off the scale of his Nauseating Meter ever since he'd shadow travelled them out of camp with their fingers intertwined, which wasn't improving his mood.

"Nico? Are you sure this is right?" Annabeth called from behind him. She got caught in a gust of wind and, tasting her conditioner, snatched escapee tendrils of blonde hair out of her face and mouth.

"This is where Rachel said," Nico reminded her impatiently, and not for the first time. "Don't shoot the messenger if she can't get it right. It should be around here somewhere…"

Annabeth huffed a sigh and bit back a retort. 'Around here somewhere' was not an expression children of Athena could live with. What kind of plan could you make based on the 'Around here somewheres' of a fledgling Oracle and a Son of Hades who didn't have his shadow travelling as down as he claimed? "If you say so," she managed evenly, placing the hand that wasn't holding Percy's into the deep pocket of her coat, both for warmth and to wrap her hand around the hilt of her knife.

"Rachel says so. Not me," Nico bit back testily, stalking further ahead of them, his eyes darting around the street and its pedestrians intently. Many of them had their heads bowed against the wind and the rain looming threateningly as well; several had hats in various forms pulled down low over their faces against the weather. Perfect way to hide your fangs and scales if you were a monster on the hunt for a demigod. It could be anyone.

"Can we just stop a minute and think about this, Nico? Even if the demi— uh, person we're trying to find is close we need to talk tactics!" Annabeth called exasperatedly, stopping dead in the middle of the sidewalk. Percy kept walking and was yanked back by their interlocked fingers. As Nico spun around impatiently to face them, pedestrians began to automatically flow around them like they were small pebbles rooted to a streambed, not registering them apart from some tutting or an eye roll or two. Yet one woman in an overcoat and outsize sunglasses despite the weather and time of day barged straight through their linked hands, wrenching them apart. She was carrying a Chihuahua dog in an enormous Louis Vuitton purse over her shoulder and had a battered straw hat with a drooping plastic flower pulled over her face. The tip of Annabeth's newly-released fingers caught on the sleeve of her coat as she shoved her way through, hitching up the cuff a couple of inches and revealing green scales underneath instead of flesh. Annabeth's breath hitched in her throat. Monster.

The woman absently and quite casually rearranged her sleeve over the scales, but not before Nico, who was facing her, had spotted them as well. He exchanged a meaningful look with Annabeth. They nodded at each other, silently confirming what the other had seen, then Nico lunged forward and snatched her wrist so they wouldn't get separated as they dodged and weaved through the people on the crowded sidewalk, trying desperately not to lose the monster.

Percy blinked at their sudden disappearance, his mouth working silently in confusion as he stared at their retreating backs. The scales had been on the arm on the far side of the woman from him, so he hadn't seen them. "Hey, wait! What? Guys!" he sputtered, spreading his hands in frustration before taking after them, getting tangled in a throng of tourists. Suddenly he seemed to be going against all of the pedestrians, giving him mental flashes of salmon slipping upstream. He quickly lost sight of both Annabeth and Nico in the churning grey and black and white sea of suits pouring from office buildings and cursed loudly as he slipped sideways between two people and took a stray elbow in his chest for his trouble. Wincing he pushed forwards just in time to see a fireball come careening out of the lobby of an office building.

The plate glass windows frosted over white and were blown outwards in a maelstrom of flying glass. The pedestrians that hadn't been blown off their feet either hit the deck or scattered in all directions screaming, some running into the street. A taxi cab honked loudly and swerved into another cab to avoid one such fleeing bystander, shunting the second cab forward into a black SUV lurched forwards and slightly to the left into oncoming traffic, and another car smashed into the front of it, partially disappearing underneath the SUV's high clearance, the hood of the car crumpling like a tin can. The force of the impact spun the SUV around ninety degrees so that it was blocking both the lane of traffic it had been in as well as the oncoming lane. The crumpled car now embedded in the SUV halted the rest of the oncoming traffic. A woman half fell out of the SUV, her face bloody and damp with tears as half the block got caught in the snarl up of traffic and ground to a total standstill.

Just as Percy was thanking the gods that emergency vehicles were going to be a little late to the scene, he caught sight of Annabeth's grey beanie lying crumpled on the pavement, the wool glowing red and feeding a coil of smoke rising from it.


	2. Chapter 2

**I said this was going to be a two part thing. I lied. I guess it's turning out to be longer than I thought it would be. So… sorry about that, I guess? Okay. Here be story. Well, there be story below, actually. Here be author's random ramblings. Thank you all so much for the Story/Author alerts, the Favourites and the reviews. Especially the reviews. I don't write for reviews but, well, they're a nice side effect of this compulsion known as writing fanfiction. :) Thanks, guys. **** Once again, enjoy or do not. There is no 'try'.**

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**Nico and Annabeth barrelled through groups of tourists and office staff in suits and other people who looked, in Nico's opinion, like they had no reason to be on the street at this time of the day at all, getting in their way. That seemed to be their sole purpose: to aggravate him and slow them down. The crowd seemed to be parting to let the monster through almost subconsciously, their eyes gliding over her as if she were partly invisible, but Annabeth and Nico were not getting that special treatment, which was apparently only reserved for someone (some_thing_) that wanted to eat the mortals and not for the demigods struggling to save them. If there was something wrong with that picture, Annabeth was too busy screeching an apology at a man behind her whose coffee she had just sent flying to mull it over too much. Her brain was already working in overdrive anyway, what with trying to stay upright with Nico yanking her arm every four seconds and trying not to break her neck by stumbling on uneven paving slabs, as well as with scrambling desperately to see if she could rescue any semblance of a plan from her whirring mind. It was happening too fast for her to properly form any kind of strategy, though, and as Nico cursed particularly loudly and yanked her arm extra-hard, she just decided to settle on one thing as a plan: Don't get killed.

She whipped her head around briefly to look for Percy, but he had disappeared amongst the crowd on the sidewalk. Had he even seen what she and Nico had seen? Had he even noticed them run? "Nico…" she gasped, slightly surprised to find herself out of breath, "we've lost Percy."

"Well where is he?" Nico demanded, stopping dead and letting go of her wrist. He rounded on her, much to the general disgust of one guy, who barged into his shoulder as he was forced to move around him. Nico scowled and automatically placed his hand on the hilt of his concealed sword, but checked himself when he saw Annabeth's look.

"I thought he was right behind us," Annabeth said uncertainly, standing on tiptoe and peering over the heads of the crowds, but catching no sight of her boyfriend. "Why does he insist on proving that there really is nothing but seaweed in his head?" she groused, half-affectionately and half-exasperatedly.

"Well, great. You just lost our best fighter," Nico muttered, turning back around. The monster had been exceptionally tall for a woman, and Nico could see the droopy flower on her sunhat bobbing up and down as she got further away from them.

"Did you just admit someone was better than you?" Annabeth asked, surprise bringing a triumphant smirk to her face. "And, hey, why did _I _lose him?"

Nico set his jaw. "Well, you're the one that's permanently surgically attached to him at the lips or hands," he replied disgustedly. "I think that pretty much makes him squarely your responsibility. Let's face it; he probably shouldn't be let out on his own. Also, Percy has had more practise than I have at fighting. Plus the whole invulnerability thing. Which I don't think I ever got thanked for, by the way. Of course he's going to be better than me." He paused, watching the sunhat bob left and enter a building. "Well, we're going to have to see how good we are on our own. She just went into that building there."

"Okay. So we're going in. We split up. Attack her in a pincer movement from both sides. She can't defend both flanks at once, right?" Annabeth said.

"I guess that depends entirely on how many heads she has," Nico reminded her darkly.

Annabeth let out an angry breath, half sigh, half scoff. "Oh, fantastic. Pessimism. That's really helpful right now, thanks for that."

Nico rolled his eyes. "I like to think of it as realism. Now come on. Are we going to stand here arguing and waiting for Percy to show or are we going to save this demigod?" He decided not to wait for an answer, instead seizing her wrist again and dragging her back off through the crowd, sending her off to a stumbling start. He ignored her muttered protests and threats to gut him if he ever decided to drag her around like this again and threw himself at the heavy plate glass revolving door that the monster had so recently disappeared into. The thing creaked but barely budged until Annabeth added her weight to it to get it started.

"Weakling," she smirked.

"Hey, it's _heavy_. And I'm not exactly built for heavy lifting, okay?" Nico returned defensively as the door spat them out into an eerily-deserted lobby.

It was obviously the reception of a very prosperous firm, Annabeth thought, noticing the expensive, imported grey marble floor with the company logo painted in the middle. A large, circular reception station made out of some kind of shiny black material stood just behind the logo. Behind the reception desk were three elevators, their doors highly-polished until they were reflective. Black leather loveseats with visible chrome supports lined the side walls. In between each sofa stood a oversized potted fern. The back left corner of the room was filled with a waterfall fountain gurgling and trickling over small rocks and pebbles down into a pool. It was the only noise that broke the silence; they were very well soundproofed from the hustle and bustle of the street outside.

"I'm not like this quiet," Nico murmured, drawing his sword and cautiously stepping forward.

"Agreed," Annabeth returned tensely, equally as quiet as Nico had been. "Are you sure you saw her go in here?"

Nico swivelled his head to face her and cocked an eyebrow at her. "So, who turned out to be right last time you were asking me if I was sure?" he said pointedly. "You know, five minutes ago?"

"Point taken. So where's she gone?" Annabeth asked, drawing one of her knives and switching it from hand to hand nervously. "The elevators…?"

Nico shrugged. "Could be. Then again, why would a monster want to be upstairs in the offices?"

"Looking for our demigod?" Annabeth suggested. "Maybe she knew the monster was after her and went up there to hide?" she suggested. That could fit, right? The total silence in the lobby was really starting to get to her as well. Compared to the clamour of the street outside, it was downright creepy. Where were all the mortals who should be working? Even if it was clocking off time, surely there should be someone around?

They edged forward slowly, keeping their weapons ready. Annabeth was holding her breath, straining her ears for the slightest noise that would give away the monster's position. They reached the reception desk and checked over the top, finding the space behind empty, before splitting up and rounding it on different sides. Even their footsteps sounded too loud in the silence.

The light above the middle elevator flicked on and a soft _ding _echoed throughout the lobby. Annabeth and Nico tensed immediately, adrenaline spiking in their veins. Annabeth nodded once and readied her knife as soon as the doors began to open, whipping it through the air end over end towards the elevator. It stuck, quivering, in the wood panelling on the back of the elevator. The car was empty. Annabeth set her jaw, her eyes flashing, as she pulled her other knife from her coat pocket and fingered the hilt, testing her grip on it. Nico began to edge forwards towards the elevators curiously, but had only crossed half the space before the left elevator reached the lobby, its doors clattering open. Annabeth took aim for a second time and threw her knife as hard as she could just as the doors opened, but again the car was empty. The knife hit the back wall and bounced off, almost disappearing into the pile of the plush carpet on the floor of the elevator. She cursed and marched forwards, jamming her hand out to stop the doors closing so she could retrieve her fallen knife. The screech of metal on wood announced Nico wrenching her other knife from the back of the next elevator. The exited the cars at the same time, looking expectantly at the last elevator and backing off so they could see inside when it came down.

Nico wordlessly handed Annabeth her knife and planted his feet firmly on the floor, his sword ready as the numbers above the last elevator counted down. "Door number three, right?" he muttered grimly.

"I'm starting to think they're all just decoys," Annabeth said contemplatively, a frown marring her features. "Are there stairs? There have to be stairs, right?"

Nico dropped his sword a little, keeping one eye on the numbers. This elevator was coming down from the highest floor, which didn't make sense because how could they be coming from different floors? Surely someone had to be sending them down from the same floor?

Annabeth's eyes swept the lobby intently until she came across a door partially hidden by one of the ferns that just had to lead to the stairwell. "I'm not going to wait to find out if someone's taking the stairs to ambush us," she said determinedly, striding over to the door just as the elevator reached the lobby.

"Annabeth," Nico called warningly as the doors rumbled open. He had caught a glimpse of movement inside and raised his sword ready to hack whatever it was to pieces, but was caught off guard when a small girl about eight years old came dashing from the elevator, her nylon nightdress flapping around her legs as she ran and her pink flannel robe flying out behind her. She was wearing one fluffy white slipper; the other foot was bare. She saw Nico's sword and sprinted over to him, latching onto his arm to swing herself around and hide half behind him. He could feel her trembling.

"Uh, whoa. Okay. What?" Nico babbled, trying to detach himself from the girl, who was now clinging to one of his legs as well as his arm. "Okay, little girl, nice impression of a limpet but how about getting off me, yeah?" He looked helplessly over at Annabeth, who was trying to stifle laughter behind her hand. "A little help?" he asked her desperately, using his free hand to try and detangle the girl and glaring at Annabeth when she continued to convulse with silent laughter.

"There's a mean lady! Don't let her eat me, please don't let her eat me!" the girl pleaded frantically, looking up at Nico with begging brown eyes. Nico gaped at her, still not over the shock of having someone attached to his waist. He suddenly realised that her hands, face and the top of her bare foot were covered in what looked like a scabby rash and he wrinkled his nose, repulsed.

"What's your name, sweetie?" Annabeth asked, finally managing to swallow her giggles as she walked over. She looked like she was barely holding them in, though; as soon as she finished speaking she had to trap her bottom lip in her teeth.

"Isobel," the girl said quietly. "Isobel Banks. My mommy, my real mommy, not my sisters' mommy, said I should come here and I did and now there's a monster lady and—"

"Slow down, sweetie," Annabeth said, holding her hands out soothingly and making shushing noises. "Who's your real mom?"

"I've seen her sometimes and I dream about her. My daddy told me her name was Demeter and he loved her very much, once, but then she had to go and she couldn't take me, but she still loved me, and then he found a new mommy for me and they made my sisters but she's not my _real_ mommy."

"Demigod," Annabeth pronounced triumphantly.

"What's wrong with her face?" Nico asked, still trying to sidle away from her but not getting very far. Isobel had apparently seen the sword and equated that with protection, and now she was not going to let him go.

"It's called tact, Nico. Look it up sometime," Annabeth chastised, moving in closer to take a look at Isobel. "Do you have the chickenpox, Isobel?"

Isobel nodded. "It's itchy. My daddy said I shouldn't scratch but it's itchy."

"Yeah, I remember," Annabeth said. "But it will stop itching soon."

"What in Hades is the chickenpox?" Nico asked. "Because it looks nasty and if this is something you can catch from KFC I am going to be pissed. The Colonel failed to mention this as a side effect of all those herbs and spices."

"You don't know what the chickenpox is?" Annabeth asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Why should I?" Nico returned defensively, having given up on trying to detach Isobel and resigning himself grudgingly to being clung onto for dear life.

"Uh, maybe because _everyone_ had it when they were a kid?" Annabeth said with a contemptuous snort. "You didn't?"

"Nope," Nico said with a shrug. "No one ever got sick inside the Casino. I guess it was part of the whole… experience? It's kind of hard to have seventy years of constant fun when you look like _that_," he said dismissively, waving a hand at Isobel. He caught Annabeth's expression and looked at her suspiciously. "What? Is that bad?"

Annabeth winced. "Uh…" she began, but was saved from explaining further when the middle elevator reached the lobby for a second time and the monster from earlier stepped out. The Chihuahua in the bag started growling at them immediately and scrabbled at the sides, squeezing out of the narrow space at the top of the bag and jumping to the marble floor, his hackles raised.

"_Three _demigods! Well, sonny, today is our lucky day!" the woman cackled gleefully, straightening her sunhat. "Sic 'em, boy!"

Isobel squeaked in fear and ducked fully behind Nico, wrapping her arms around his legs. The dog's head began to bulge and distort, fangs sprouting from its black gums as it began to swell like some hideously deformed Macy's Thanksgiving balloon, growing all the time. Nico's eyes widened and he was fairly sure that Annabeth and he both gulped in sync. Somehow, Nico managed to pry Isobel off long enough to drag her into his arms, balancing her awkwardly and clumsily onto his hip even though she was far too big to do it comfortably. With a final heave he placed her on top of the reception desk, where she clung desperately to his neck, half-sobbing.

"Look, kid, look. You've gotta hide. Just hide there, we'll sort this out, and don't come out until we say, yeah?" he told her, watching out of the corner of his eye as the transformed monster's shaggy head and bloodstained mane brushed against the high ceiling. He looked Isobel right in the eye. "You got it?" Isobel nodded frantically, her eyes seeming to be nothing but the whites as she scooted over the edge of the reception desk and disappeared inside the circle.

"I thought _she _was the monster!" Nico said to Annabeth, sounding accusing. "What is _that_?"

"Oh, like I'm the expert suddenly? She had scales; I thought that was a pretty good indicator that it was her, okay? It usually is!" Annabeth snapped back, tightening her grip on both her knives. They suddenly seemed ridiculously small.

Their bickering was interrupted by a loud hiss as the gigantic snake that appeared to be the monster's tail whipped across the marble floor, tossing a love seat and a fern through the air as if they were nothing but dollhouse furniture. Annabeth and Nico ducked as they went sailing overhead and hit the opposite wall hard, shattering the glass front of impressionist watercolour hanging there and splitting the canvas in two. The fern's ceramic pot shattered, spewing soil in all directions.

"Snake tail," Annabeth breathed, getting shakily to her feet. "This is not good. That's the—"

"Chimera?" the woman asked smugly, stepping around the gigantic beast and placing a loving hand on its flank. "Yes, dear. Although, I was expecting demigods of your age to be quicker on the uptake."

"Echidna," Annabeth stated grimly.

Nico cocked his head. "Echidna? Isn't that a type of—"

"_Don't say it!"_ Echidna howled, her eyes glowing red and her forked tongue flickering out of her mouth in her rage. Her face broke out into brown and green scales. "Don't you _dare_ call me one of those filthy, common—"

"Anteaters?" Nico provided innocently, smiling at her.

Echidna roared, actually roared, and for a second Nico was more afraid of her than the Chimera. Then, as the Chimera growled, setting the entire lobby rumbling, he corrected himself. _Nothing _was more scary than a gigantic thing with a whole other venomous creature (he was just guessing but, in his experience, these things were _always _venomous) for a tail and fangs as long as his sword.

"Way to piss off the _Mother of All Monsters_," Annabeth hissed through clenched teeth. "As if we weren't going to get killed hard enough already."

"Hey, you may be planning on dying, but I'm not," Nico shot back. He looked around, quickly assessing the situation, then shoved Annabeth hard in the small of her back, sending her reeling forwards directly into the Chimera's range. When she looked back at him in angry disbelief, he only shrugged and flashed her a grin. "There. Make yourself useful. I'll be back." And he leapt over the reception desk and vanished into the shadows under the desk, much to Isobel's surprise.

Annabeth cursed Nico's name far too loudly and fluently given that there was an eight-year-old in the vicinity and threw herself to the left to avoid a lunge of the Chimera's head. She felt the gust of foul smelling wind as the jaws snapped shut just inches from her as she combat rolled back onto her feet. Setting her face determinedly, she held her stance as the Chimera snapped at her again, plunging both of her knives into its black nose. The Chimera reared back and she lost the grip on one of her knives; it was wrenched out of her grasp and into the air, where it stayed lodged in the monster's nose. The other one she had a firmer grasp on and it came free, stained with green blood. She scrunched up her face in distaste and wiped it on her jeans. The Chimera opened its mouth and she caught a glimpse of a fiery glow deep in the back. She tensed, ready to be barbecued, when Nico yelled out and the flames died suddenly.

"Yee-hah!" the son of Hades screeched giddily, high on adrenaline. He had shadow-travelled behind the monster while it was distracted by Annabeth and clambered onto the snake/tail, straddling it just behind the head. The snake was hissing and spitting but seemed unable to dislodge him for the moment, despite all of the thrashing it was doing. The Chimera's head was focussed on what was happening with Nico on its tail. It gave another room-shaking growl with an added snarl and lunged for him. Nico held his ground until the very last millisecond, then threw himself backwards into the shadow of the beast and vanished. The Chimera's fangs chomped down on the rearing snake, crunching and grinding through the skull and spattering green, poisonous blood all over the back wall of the lobby. Annabeth's knife pinged free from its snout as the blood hissed and smoked, starting to corrode the wall and floor. The Chimera yelped and whimpered in pain, suddenly sounding very much like its Chihuahua disguise.

"NO!" Echidna screeched, her slit eyes pulsing red. "What have you done?" She turned lovingly to the injured monster, whispering to it.

"What if that hadn't worked?" Annabeth demanded as Nico vaulted the reception desk to stand next to her. "You could have been Chimera chow. _I _could have been Chimera chow!"

"I thought you'd just be happy I had a _plan_," Nico said resentfully. He eyed the monster warily, which appeared to still be absorbed in trying to lick its mangled snake/tail back to life. It would almost be pitiful, if, you know, it wasn't such a giant beast sent from the depths of Tartarus to slaughter them horribly.

"Get Isobel," Nico said. "We've got to get out of here. It's nowhere near dead yet."

Annabeth nodded. "That's the first thing you've said that I agree with all day. Even Percy couldn't kill this thing. I mean, I know he was eleven but still…"

"I forgot you guys fought them before. Why didn't you recognise her?"

Annabeth huffed as she leaned over the reception desk and held out her arms to Isobel. "Let's go, sweetie. You're fine now." She grunted as she hauled the child back over the desk, wondering vaguely how on earth the receptionist managed to get in and out with any dignity. "Echidna changed her disguise, okay? Monsters are tricky like that. It's what they do." She balanced Isobel awkwardly on her hip and made for the revolving door.

"We can restore you later, son!" Echidna screeched, jabbing a talon at their escape attempt. "They did this to you! Get them!"

The Chimera's head whipped up and growled, readying itself on its haunches and taking a flying leap across the room to land in front of the door. Annabeth and Nico screeched to a halt. Annabeth overbalanced because of Isobel and fell to the hard floor with a loud slap, tangled with the screaming younger demigod and with the wind knocked out of her.

"This is so not the time to be falling over," Nico said, sticking out a hand to yank her up. "Can you hit the call button of the elevator from here?" he asked, nodding at Annabeth's knife. He was not at all encouraged when he saw Annabeth look uncertain about the accuracy of her knife-throwing skills for the first time he could remember.

Annabeth was finally able to draw in a blissful breath suddenly so she could speak. "I—"

"Do it," Nico demanded, stabbing the Chimera in the foot as a distraction. It reared up and howled in pain.

Annabeth swallowed and tried to block out the noise in the room. She focussed entirely on the call button and whipped her knife towards it.

_Come on, Artemis, Apollo_, she prayed. _I know this isn't exactly archery but there's a target and I need to hit it or die, so… _

Apparently the twin archers had lain off their bickering long enough to be listening. The knife struck the call button perfectly and the elevator, still at the lobby from earlier, dinged open. Annabeth turned her head and saw the seething mass of flames building in the Chimera's throat again. Thinking fast she whipped off her beanie, balling it up and tossing it hard into the monster's face, temporarily blinding it so she could pick up Isobel again and make a mad dash for the elevator. Nico was streaking along beside her. She made it to the elevator, her arms and thighs screaming at her for sprinting with so much extra weight added. It felt like the hip with Isobel on was being wrenched out of place as she tumbled headfirst onto the carpeted floor of the elevator car, looking desperately around for Nico. He had not managed to dodge Echidna and she had snared him by a handful of his jacket and was letting him dangle in midair. He was kicking and writhing and cussing up a storm enough to make a sailor blush, but couldn't get free, and his sword was nowhere to be seen. As the elevator doors slid shut, Annabeth saw Echidna grinning maniacally as the lobby began to fill with the roar of flames.

**Hee! Some people thought that Annabeth was going to bite the dust. She lived! Panic over. I cannot be killing off canon characters. Well. Not unless I'm writing a sad emo piece with someone walking in the rain... Well, now I'm thinking bad thoughts about killing characters and having other characters be sad. Hmm.  
**

** So I guess now I'm going to have to write a third part to this… Luckily I'm pretty much unemployed then, no? Hope you enjoyed. And if not, how come you got this far? ;) **

**Mission to Marzipan out.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**This. Fic. Will not. Die. Seriously. I made this chapter really longer, longer than all the rest by like nearly 100% and it's STILL refusing to be finished. Prepare yourself for a fourth part, by Zeus. Which shall hopefully be a nice short court case and then I can be done. I can't believe this. I wanted a oneshot in which Persephone schemed to give Nico the chickenpox, Percy caught it off him and tada! But no. No, no, no. This fic had other ideas! Other places to be, people to meet! It's running away with my brain, that's what it's doing. And running fast, too, because of how little of my brain there is to steal.**

**I still do not own anything of Rick Riordan's. Do you really think I'm that awesome? I also still have no money should you want to sue me.**

**So… Brace yourself. This is 6K plus, which is quite a bit, for a chapter of fanfiction. If only my own writing doggedly refused to let go like this fic has… Story is down there. If you make it. Perhaps stop halfway. Have a drink or an energy bar.**

**Mission to Marzipan out.**

**

* * *

**

The massive explosion had quickly guzzled up all the oxygen; the accompanying flames died down pretty fast. As Percy made his way over to Annabeth's beanie, he noticed that most of the people milling around on the street were bleeding from any area of exposed skin. He had felt shards of glass glance off him, unable to penetrate his flesh, and realised he must look pretty strange without any injuries. Shrugging it off and gripping Riptide tightly in his fist he slid past some milling, glazed-eyed pedestrians (clearly the Mist was at work already) and grabbed the hat, clenching it tightly in his other hand. His throat felt oddly constricted as he stared at it and he gulped a few times to try and clear it. The cacophony of street noise faded into the background, replaced by one overwhelming wave of white noise accompanied by a throbbing ringing in his ears as realisation began to dawn on him. Was Annabeth… had she…?

His head whipped up at the sound of a roar from inside the building. Shoving the beanie hurriedly into his pocket he set his jaw and clambered over the twisted steel frames of the windows, his eyes icy. Some kind of electricity was crackling deep within him as he glared at whatever was in the lobby, whatever had… had _killed_ Annabeth. This monster was not going to get away with that, dammit. Not while he was here to do something about it.

Inside the building, a fire alarm was screeching deafeningly. There was still a lot of smoke; although most of it was billowing out of the demolished front of the building there was still enough to choke him. He was drenched within seconds from the sprinklers that were trying to extinguish what was an almost already-extinct fire, his thirst for revenge for Annabeth overriding his inclination to stay dry. It was then that he saw the Chimera towering above him, a sight he had sincerely hoped never to see again after the St. Louis Arch. Needless to say, that particular episode had not ended well. There had been no promises to stay in touch, no exchange of long-winded Christmas cards boasting about what they and their families had been doing since the last one they had written.

"Perseus Jackson!" Echidna cackled gleefully, hopping up onto the remains of the reception desk and perching there casually. "Well my day just keeps getting better and better! You ran away from our little fight last time. That's hardly playing fair now, is it?"

Percy's eyes were watering from the smoke and when he opened his mouth to retort it hit the back of his throat and he dissolved into a coughing fit. Fantastic. This was hardly heroic, he thought bitterly, swiping at his streaming eyes as he straightened up. He bet Theseus had never paused to hack up a lung when faced with the Minotaur. "I was eleven," he finally managed hoarsely. "A lot's changed since then." The water from the sprinklers had stopped hitting the floor some time ago, and instead was pooling at around ankle level. With a wave of his hand, he let loose this reservoir of water in one high-pressure burst, hitting Echidna full on in the chest and sending her crashing against the back wall, soaked and sputtering wetly with rage.

The Chimera took deep offence at this treatment of his mother and pounced at Percy, who dodged quickly sideways and stabbed the monster in the thigh. The Chimera, however, skidded on the slick floor and went sailing off into the front corner so fast that it whipped Riptide's hilt from Percy's hands. As the Chimera fell into a heap, Percy noticed its ruined tail for the first time. It had trailed limply behind the monster, leaving a trail of green slime in its wake. At least Annabeth and Nico had done some damage before the explosion; even if it had taken them out they had gone down fighting. The monster quickly righted itself and, snarling and limping, rounded on Percy, gnashing its teeth and drooling white foam. Thinking fast, Percy leapt on top of the blackened remains of what looked like it used to be a computer keyboard and, willing the puddle it was sitting in to rise up beneath him, was soon surfing on the crest of a wave straight at the monster. At the last minute he threw himself at his sword, his momentum wrenching it out of the Chimera along with a large chunk of the monster's thigh, before commanding the wave he had just ridden to split in two. It moved around the Chimera and rose to tsunami height behind it before snatching the monster up and hurling it against the back wall just next to its mother, seeming to shake the building to its very foundations with the impact.

"Like I said: I'm not eleven anymore," Percy said darkly, twirling Riptide in his hands as he advanced on his adversaries. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the crumpled and charred black aviation jacket peeping out from under a wrecked computer monitor. _Nico… _"What happened to my friends?" he demanded angrily. "Where are they?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, Perseus?" Echidna asked tauntingly, throwing in a cackle.

"Tell me," Percy spat, marching forward and pressing Riptide's point against her scaly throat. "Or I swear on the River Styx I'll—" He was cut off by the Chimera again taking offence at Percy's violence against his mother. The beast, still collapsed from its run in with the wave and the wall, was lying down, but still managed to give a weak growl and attempt to sink its fangs into Percy's leg. Percy looked down coolly as the monster tried to pierce his skin, its jaw straining so hard that it broke several fangs. Percy hoped that wherever it was that monsters went to recuperate after run-ins with heroes had somewhere prepped for some serious orthodontic work. The Chimera backed off, its mouth dripping blood and its teeth in pieces on the marble floor, whimpering piteously.

"You bear the Curse of Achilles!" Echidna gasped, awestruck.

Percy only nodded, turning and jabbing Riptide up to its hilt into the roof of the Chimera's ruined mouth. The monster almost immediately vanished in a swirl of golden dust, which got caught up with the rivers of water running across the floor and was eddied away. "Yeah. You better spread the word. I guess it sucks to be you right now, huh?"

Echidna howled in grief, reaching out for the space her son had been, before turning on Percy. "You will regret this, Perseus Jackson. You will regret this as long as your pathetic mortal life lasts!" she spat, vanishing suddenly as he raised his sword.

"If I had a dollar for every time I'd heard that," Percy muttered, letting out a loud sigh and closing his eyes briefly, the adrenaline surge slowly fading. He realised for the first time in years (outside of a shower) he was dripping wet and shoved his sopping hair backwards out of his face. Suddenly a door banged open and Percy whirled around, Riptide poised threateningly to attack and adrenaline spiking again. Hesitating in the doorway between a stairwell and the lobby were Annabeth, Nico and a young girl, who was piggybacking Nico and holding onto his neck for what looked like dear life. Nico's face and arms were smudged with soot and his eyebrows looked slightly singed, but apart from that they all seemed unscathed.

"About time," Nico groused at Percy, hitching Isobel up further onto his back. As well as an arm crooked tightly around his neck, Percy realised she also had a fistful of his t-shirt. It did not look like she was going to let go anytime soon.

"Uh, gee, thanks, Percy, for killing the Chimera and sending Echidna packing," Percy said sarcastically. "Not at all, Nico, it was my pleasure to save your ass." He walked over to Annabeth and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her blonde head. He pulled away and grabbed her hat from his pocket. "Here. This is yours. When I saw it, I thought— you know…"

"Hey, I survived too," Nico reminded Percy. "No mushy greeting for me?"

Percy chose to ignore that comment. "So, you've made a friend?" he asked smugly, his face lighting up with a smirk as he took in Isobel.

Nico scowled up at him. The height difference between them was made all the more apparent by the fact that he was stooped under Isobel's weight. "She won't. Let go," he said through gritted teeth. "And Annabeth has already made it clear that she finds it all kinds of hilarious so if you say _one word_—"

"What's wrong with her face?" Percy interrupted suddenly, taking a second look at Isobel.

Annabeth's mouth fell open and she made an indignant noise, reaching out to smack Percy on the shoulder. "You're as bad Nico! You're making it sound like she's got leprosy or something, not the chickenpox."

"Will someone _please_ explain this whole chickenpox thing to me," Nico asked exasperatedly. "I'm starting to get really paranoid."

"He doesn't know?" Percy asked Annabeth. "He's never had—"

"_I'm still here_!" Nico reminded them irritably, annoyed at their discussion (literally, damn their height) taking place over his head, as if he wasn't there. "I was also nearly barbequed, by the way, had to shadow travel out of that one, but don't even mention it."

"Flip a drachma to decide who tells him?" Percy suggested, reaching into his jacket pocket. Before he could get a coin out of his pocket though, tyres screeched outside and the lobby was illuminated with blue and red flashing lights. Without a word, Nico pulled them backwards into the stairwell and they all melted into the shadows.

* * *

It was two weeks later when Nico came wandering into the Poseidon cabin without knocking and flopped face-first onto the end of Percy's bed. Annabeth and Percy had broken apart hastily at his entrance, straightening their clothes. Annabeth was blushing deeply and the tops of Percy's ears had turned red but Nico, his face buried in the comforter, didn't notice.

"So, I feel like crap," Nico muttered, his voice heavily muffled by the face full of bed. "Also, you need to wash your sheets."

"Knocking, Nico?" Annabeth tried exasperatedly, suddenly realising that she had buttoned the top three buttons of her blouse in the wrong holes in her haste.

Nico turned his head to look at her reproachfully. "But I'm sick," he whined.

Annabeth rolled her eyes heavily but relented, leaning forward to place a hand on his forehead. "Oh, yeah. Here we go. You're burning up," she said. "Do you have a headache?"

Nico nodded, groaning and burying his face back in the bed. "And I have earache. And my throat is scratchy," he re-emerged briefly to tell her.

Annabeth sighed and reached over the side of the bed for her purse. She rummaged around inside and pulled out a pack of Tylenol, popping two pills out and jabbing Nico in the side with her foot so he would roll over. "These are for the pain and the fever," she told him, dropping them into his outstretched hand and handing him a glass of water from the nightstand. "I don't suppose you've got the blistery rash yet?"

Nico pouted and pulled up his t-shirt wordlessly, displaying a small cluster of chickenpox around his bellybutton. It felt like every cavity in his skull had been plugged with cotton wool, and his head and ears were throbbing in sync. "Those are new," he said. "I've been feeling gross for a couple of days, but I was hoping I wasn't getting it."

"Oooh, nice," Percy said, a little too gleefully for Nico, who glared at him.

"I hate you so much right now," Nico told Percy darkly. "I have the chickenpox. Be nice to me."

"Nico, it's not the end of the world," Annabeth said exasperatedly, rolling her eyes. "Stop acting like such a baby."

Nico stared down at the pills in his hand, then rammed them both into his mouth and took a large gulp of the water. "Am I going to get all itchy and spotty like Isobel?" he asked miserably after swallowing, handing the water back to Annabeth.

"Yeah, only Isobel seemed to be handling it much better than you," Percy said, smirking. "You know that itty bitty girl had truly mastered manning up. You, on the other hand…"

"Still hating you," Nico informed Percy with a glower.

"Hey, I'm not the one that let a contagious demigod use me as a jungle gym," Percy shot back with a grin. "Nice going."

"She wouldn't let go of me!" Nico groaned, flopping back down onto the bed and glaring at the ceiling. "She didn't even want to let go of me when we took her back to her parents! It was like she was _welded_ to me."

"Hey, _I_ got her to let go," Annabeth reminded him smugly, absently peeling the chipped polish some of the Aphrodite girls had forced on her off her nails. She let them attack her with nail files and polish and hairbrushes and mascara periodically because life was so much quieter without them begging her constantly to 'do something' about her appearance. Under the kind of pressure the Aphrodite cabin could exert, Annabeth had seen Clarisse, _Clarisse, _for Zeus's sake, relenting and allowing the application of lip gloss. And, hey, being wise and looking good didn't always have to be mutually exclusive, right?

"By pimping me out!" Nico howled indignantly. "Promising I'd be back with ice cream!"

"Yeah, you'd better make good on that promise," Percy said. "Wouldn't want to weasel out of your _date_…"

"I don't care how many times you've saved the world. _You _are going to Tartarus," Nico promised, his tone a vague stab at threatening, the effect dampened by his pale, clammy complexion and the fact that he hadn't managed to sit up to deliver his threat.

Percy smiled, rolling his eyes. He swung his legs off his bed and snatched his Converse to him, shoving them on. He didn't bother to lace them up, just walked around the bed and grabbed Nico by the upper arm and hauled him to his feet. Nico was swaying slightly, and Percy's smile faltered now he was closer to him and could feel the heat of the younger demigod's fever. "Is he going to be okay?" he asked Annabeth concernedly.

"I read the Wikipedia entry on chickenpox. I didn't become Dr. Annabeth Chase, MD," Annabeth said snappily. "Yes, he'll be fine," she said after a pause, rolling her eyes heavily but softening after the concerned look on Percy's face deepened to the point that it was on the verge of alarm. "It's just not going to be a fun ride."

"Fine then. Come on, Nico. I'm going to take you to the best place in the world to be if you're sick," Percy said, smacking Nico on the back and moving towards the door with him dazedly in tow. "Do you think we can catch a lift with Argus back to the city?"

* * *

The whiteness of a blank page in Word was glaring at Sally as she sat with her laptop balanced on her lap. It was glaring at her probably because she hadn't written anything on it in all the time it had been open (which was nearing an hour) but to add insult to injury she was mostly ignoring it to watch _The View_. Total guilty (also, secret) pleasure, but when inspiration wouldn't come then what else was a woman supposed to do while alone in her apartment? Especially when the apartment was already spotless because she had spent yesterday afternoon when she had got home from work scrubbing and wiping and sweeping and mopping to avoid the accusatory blank Word page, in which she was supposed to be typing an assignment for her writing class. And people said that sleeping with the professor was the way to an easy A…

Thankfully a knock on the door saved her from her struggle with her muse, and she shifted the laptop off her lap onto the coffee table in front of her, closing the lid. She got up, smoothing her skirt and was just about to flick the TV off with the remote when the door opened.

"Never mind. Found my key!" her son called by way of greeting, waving the key in the air in triumph.

Sally's thumb stabbed the red 'standby' button on the remote and the TV went dark, but probably not before her three visitors had got an eyeful of what she was watching. _Great_. "Percy," she said, rounding the couch and walking towards them. "What's the matter?"

"Were you watching _The View_?" Percy asked incredulously. "I thought we weaned you off that habit."

Sally narrowed her eyes playfully at her son. "You did, but then I remembered that I'm a grown woman and your mother to boot and as such I can do as I please, not least because as your mother I have access to certain photographs—"

"Nico's sick," Percy said loudly, cutting his mother off and shoving him at her. Anything to get off the subject of _those_ bath-time photos.

"Oh, poor dear," Sally said, her eyes filling with sympathy. She took Nico gently by the arm and led him to the couch, pressing a hand to his forehead. "He's burning up…" she said concernedly as he sunk back into the couch cushions.

"Sorry," Nico mumbled. "Percy made me come."

"Oh, please. Don't be sorry; it's fine. I'm just glad to see he thinks so much of my nursing skills," Sally returned, moving her hand to Nico's hair and pushing it off his damp forehead affectionately.

"I gave him some Tylenol," Annabeth said, shrugging off her jacket and automatically going to hang it in the little closet to the left of the door without any prompting, picking up Percy's jacket, which he had flung over the credenza on the other side of the door and upset a bowl of potpourri, as she went.

"Good thinking," Sally said, straightening up. "Then I guess soup is the next thing on the list. There's actually some in the freezer that I made last time Paul felt a little sniffly… Of course, Paul thought he had bronchial pneumonia," she added, addressing the last part of her remark at Annabeth pointedly, receiving a mirror image of her own 'Men!' eye roll in return. Smiling to herself she left for the kitchen.

Percy flung himself down in an armchair, one leg dangling over the arm, and flipped the TV back on, his face creasing in disgust as _The View_ returned to the screen. He quickly began channel surfing, wanting to put as many numbers between him at that show as possible.

"Annabeth, Nico, has Percy offered you anything to drink?" Sally's voice asked from the kitchen amidst the clattering of some pans.

Percy sighed and got up off the chair, tossing the remote to Nico. Nico didn't catch it and it smacked him on the chin. Percy winced apologetically and followed his mom into the kitchen, where Sally was brandishing a wooden spoon and prodding at a frozen block of soup in a pan on the stove.

"What's wrong with Nico?" Sally asked immediately, urgently, turning on Percy as soon as he came in the room. "It's nothing…" she paused, trying to figure out the best way to ask. "Greek is it?" she finished, quite lamely in her opinion. "There is only so much I can do, Percy, and if he's really sick with some kind of demigod illness then I am really not an expert. You shouldn't have brought him. Isn't there anyone at Camp who would be—"

"Mom, it's fine," Percy said, giving her a quick reassuring hug. "Chill, okay? It's nothing Olympian or deadly." He broke away from her to open the fridge and peer inside. "He's just managed to get the chickenpox," he told the inside of the fridge wryly, coming back out with three sodas. "Apparently he's never had it before because of the Lotus Hotel, so when we rescued a demigod who had it…" He trailed off as his mother's mouth fell open in surprise, then as her forehead creased in concern asked, "What? What's that look for? You took such great care of me whenever I was sick, and Nico doesn't exactly have anyone, so…"

"Percy, chickenpox is highly contagious!" Sally chided, remembering her soup at the last second and giving it a quick stir so it wouldn't burn to the bottom of the pan. "And it's really dangerous to have it when you get to your age! Worse than if you have it when you're younger."

Percy frowned. "Nico's… Nico's not my age, Mom."

Sally turned back to him incredulously, tucking one hand into her hip and giving him The Look. "Are you serious?" she asked him. "How could you forget that you've never had the chickenpox?"

"What?" Annabeth demanded from the doorway. She had walked in from the living room in search of the drink that had been offered, but now she was jabbing an accusing finger at Percy. "How dumb _are_ you? You said you'd had it!"

Percy's mouth opened and closed a few times. He suddenly realised that the cold sodas were burning into his hands and put them down noisily on the kitchen table, not noticing when one rolled off the edge and went skittering across the linoleum. "I _have_ had it!" he said to Sally. "Right?"

"Percy, honey, are you seriously questioning me, your mother, authority on more than the last sixteen years of your life?" Sally asked. "Don't you think I'd know if you'd had the chickenpox?"

"Well, what did I have with the spots if it wasn't chickenpox?" Percy asked, frowning as he tried to dive into the depths of his memory.

"It was measles, honey," Sally reminded him gently, giving the soup another stir.

"Trust you to get something as potentially fatal as measles and leave something as minor as the chickenpox out entirely," Annabeth said sardonically. "And then _forgetting_ it was measles and not the chickenpox! Seaweed. For. Brains. Never been more appropriate."

Percy deflated. "Oh…" he said slowly, letting it sink in. Then he brightened. "Well, thank the gods I'm invincible then, huh?"

"In the small of your back?" Annabeth pointed out. "What about on your insides? The virus is spread by the exhalations of infected people. So unless you got a good two lungful of Stygian water which, as you managed not to drown, I'm going to guess you didn't…"

Percy considered this, then threw himself down into one of the kitchen chairs, groaning. "Shit."

Sally smiled serenely, turning off the soup. "If I condoned cussing in my kitchen, those would be my sentiments exactly," she said, a little too gleefully for Percy's liking. He caught Annabeth's grey eyes and they, too, were sparkling in that way they did before she was about to burst out laughing. She was trapping her bottom lip between her teeth as well, a sure sign she was trying desperately not to find something hilarious.

"Glad to see you're both loving this," Percy said gloomily, snapping open one of the sodas and taking a deep drink. "So when do I get it?"

"Anywhere between ten and twenty-one days after exposure to an infected person," Annabeth said promptly, picking up the second soda from the table and opening it. "Seeing as you're about fifty times as robust as Nico, you might be able to fight it a little bit longer, I guess. But soon, definitely."

Percy eyed her suspiciously. "You seem to know all about it," he said. "Have you been plotting to infect me?"

"Sure, Percy," Annabeth said sarcastically. "I arranged for the Chimera to come to New York, try to kill Isobel, blow up half a building… It was all in a day's work. Like I said before: it's called Wikipedia. My mom helped invent it."

"Why _was_ Isobel in New York, though?" Nico asked. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his arms folded tightly over his chest. "When we asked her, all she said was that her mom had told her to come. What kind of mother tells their child to go into the city while sick without even stopping to dress? That's all kinds of screwy, even by the standards of Olympian parents." A thunderclap boomed through the kitchen, but Nico shrugged it off, absently scratching at his right forearm, where some more chickenpox were rising. "Come on," he asked the ceiling. "Are you _really_ trying to tell me that you're all fabulous parents all the time?" He cocked his head, listening for another angry rumble of thunder or perhaps even a descending lightning bolt in answer, but none came. He supposed he had caught them out.

Sally began ushering him out of the kitchen and back to the couch, following with the bowl of soup on a tray. "Come on Nico, sit down." Once he was settled on the couch, Sally placed the tray on his lap and arranged the cushions behind him. "Do you want anything else?" she asked. "Something to drink?"

Nico shook his head, his mouth already full of soup. "No, this is great. Really good. Thank you."

Annabeth had followed them back from the kitchen and was perching on the edge of the coffee table, flicking the pull ring on her soda can absently and staring at Nico interestedly. "You know, you actually have a point," she conceded slowly. "Something about this doesn't quite add up." She put her drink down on Nico's tray and got up, walking over to the closet and shrugging on her jacket. "Thanks for the soda, Mrs Jackson. I've got to go and check something out. You two stay here and be disease buddies or whatever. I'll be back." She opened the door and slipped out of the apartment.

"I hate it when she does that," Percy grumbled. "So cryptic."

"Come and sit next to me," Nico said, patting the couch cushion next to him with one hand and scratching his arm with the other. "Just in case I didn't germ you up enough on the ride over. I am so taking you down with me if it's the last thing I do."

Percy groaned. "This sucks. I'd rather have to fight the Chimera again then get sick."

"I believe you told me to 'man up'?" Nico reminded him smugly, smirking and dodging the throw pillow Percy had tossed at his head.

* * *

Three days later, Sally was in the middle of cleaning the bathtub when someone knocked at the door. She straightened up, dumped her cloth in the bucket she was using and stripped off her rubber gloves. As soothing as oatmeal baths were for people with chickenpox, by Olympus they were messy.

"Coming!" she called down the hall to the front door. She passed Percy's bedroom on the way, where they had set up a camp bed for Nico. Percy had finally come down with chickenpox and if she had to tell the pair of them to stop scratching one more time she was either going to go crazy or tie the pair of them down. Or possibly both. That was when Paul, ever her knight in shining armour, had come home from work one day with a box of antihistamines which not only helped with the itching but also had the handy side effect (she noticed with a twinge of guilt) of making them so drowsy they were practically knocked out. Though the ethics of drugging two teenagers into unconsciousness were questionable at best, at least it stopped them scratching and bickering for a couple of hours, and at least it gave her just enough respite to stop her marching herself to the nearest mental hospital and demanding she be sectioned. Percy and Nico were not good patients, and that was putting it mildly. ADHD and demigod reflexes did not make it easy for either of them to convalesce. She opened the door and was greeted by Annabeth, who was holding the hand of a young girl of about eight.

"Hey, Mrs Jackson," Annabeth said, handing her a bag. "I got some calamine lotion and some OJ. Figured you'd need it. How are they? Have you wrung their spotty necks yet?"

"It's been tempting," Sally said dryly, taking the bag off her. "Who's this?"

"Oh, sorry!" Annabeth said. "This is Isobel. The little girl we saved who started the whole epidemic. She's kind of got a… thing for Nico. Let's just hope her taste improves as she ages. Her parents said it was okay for her to come and see them for an hour or so because apparently she hasn't stopped talking about Nico since we rescued her. Plus, I wanted to ask her a couple of things."

"Well hi, Isobel," Sally said. "I'm Sally. Would you like some cookies?"

Isobel nodded shyly. "Is Nico here?"

"He's sleeping at the moment, but yeah, he's here. Come in, both of you. I'll go and wake them up," Sally said, standing back to let them enter the apartment.

"No need," Annabeth said decidedly, already marching towards Percy's room. "Allow me."

Sally was in the kitchen scooping blue cookies off a baking tray for Isobel, but she still heard two loud thumps and a whole lot of protesting on Nico and Percy's part that let her know Annabeth had most certainly managed to wake them. She smiled as she put cookies on a plate and returned to the living room. Isobel was sitting on the couch quietly. Annabeth was walking down the corridor from the bedrooms and bathroom, followed much slower by Percy and Nico, whose eyes were clogged with sleep. Nico had a blanket wrapped around him like a cape and was dragging it across the carpet with one hand while rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the other. They were both absolutely covered in chickenpox and pink daubs of calamine lotion, and Percy still had on one of the socks Sally had jammed on his hands as a discouragement from scratching.

Annabeth winced when she saw them in the brighter light of the living room. "Oh wow," she said. "That's… wow."

Isobel had got to her feet when Nico had entered the room and was twirling a strand of hair that had come free from one of her pigtails around her finger, glancing up at him occasionally and then back down to the carpet hastily.

"It feels like I'm being dragged behind a chariot over gravel," Percy groused, suddenly realised he was wearing a sock on his hand and ripping it off, balling it up and considering momentarily before chucking it at Nico. "This sucks."

"I bought you a visitor," Annabeth said brightly when she had recovered from the shock, gesturing to Isobel. "She's been really helpful, so I said she could come along and see you. She's all better now."

"Nico would _definitely_ like a hug," Percy said promptly on realising Isobel was there, stepping out of the way as Isobel gleefully went running across the room to latch onto Nico's waist, nearly toppling him over.

"I am so glad I gave you the chickenpox," Nico growled at him, tentatively giving Isobel a couple of pats on the head.

"Play nice," Annabeth cautioned. "She helped me discover how this whole thing started." Nico had stopped trying to express affection to Isobel, who had still not let go of him, and was scratching absently at his chest under his pyjama top. Percy had sat down on a chair so it was easier to scratch his calf.

Sally noticed Annabeth looking at them exasperatedly. "See what I've been dealing with?" she asked, throwing her hands up in the air. "I've told them that they're going to be left with scars the size of moon craters, but do they listen?"

"Oh! I almost forgot," Annabeth said, delving into her coat pocket and producing two small flasks. She threw one to Percy and one to Nico. "Nectar," she explained. "I spoke to Chiron and he said that even though it was a mortal illness, applying a _small_ amount to the skin wouldn't end up with you both as big piles of ash ready for the Dirt Devil. He doesn't recommend drinking it, though. Unless you're grievously wounded it's not something you should be knocking back."

Percy uncorked his flask quickly and started rubbing a few drops onto his leg, sinking back into the armchair as if he were in ecstasy. "Oh yeah. That's the stuff."

"Small amount!" Annabeth reminded him hastily as he started drizzling the nectar onto his arm.

Percy sighed sadly, making what he had poured on spread thinly over his entire arm and most of his chest. "Fine. But being a huge pile of ash is looking like an awesome alternative right now."

"Do you want to hear this story or not?" Annabeth demanded, as Nico finally managed to detangle himself from Isobel long enough for them both to sit down on the couch. She happily led down with her head in his lap and began sucking her thumb, while his hands hovered uncertainly over her, panic written across his face.

"Do we have a choice?" Percy asked, reluctantly re-corking the flask.

"Very funny," Annabeth huffed, walking around the couch and snagging a cookie from the plate. She jabbed at Percy until he reluctantly shuffled over enough for her to perch on the arm of the chair. In a move the Stoll brothers would have been proud of, Percy quickly liberated her of her cookie and took a large bite. She swatted at his arm exasperatedly.

"I'm sick," Percy said in defence through a half-chewed mouthful of cookie.

"That didn't work for Nico three days ago and it's not going to work now," Annabeth said, narrowing her eyes at him. "_Any_way, after Nico said how weird it was that Demeter would want Isobel to go into that building even though she was sick, I decided to pay a visit to the Demeter cabin. They said they thought maybe they could get her to talk to me, or get a nymph or something to talk to her on my behalf, but it might take a couple of days because she's just kicking off the growing season.

"Last night Lucy Pinter from the Demeter cabin came and found me and said Demeter had given me five minutes. I asked her why she'd sent Isobel to the city, and she said she had done no such thing. She even said that there was no way she would visit her children when they had something like the chickenpox, because she found it gross. Which was, you know, pleasant of her. So I was wondering who knew Demeter and her kids well enough to impersonate her and—"

"_Persephone_," Nico spat, realisation dawning on him. "It must have been her. She must have set the whole thing up so I'd have to go and save Isobel and get sick. Probably revenge for having to spend all that time with me over the winter. She's the only one that would want me to get sick and has such extensive knowledge of Demeter."

"She doesn't hate _me_," Percy said indignantly. "Why have I got to suffer?"

"She wasn't aiming for you," Nico told him. "You just got in the way. Rachel's Iris message went through to me when she was trying to contact you. I thought it was because you were…" His eyes flicked momentarily to Sally. "You know. _Busy_. Maybe she made that happen as well… I wouldn't put it past her."

Sally cleared her throat. "It… sounds like she went to a lot of trouble just to give you the chickenpox, Nico. Are you sure?"

"My stepmother hates me," Nico told her moodily, picking at a scab on the inside of his wrist. He looked so dejected that Sally didn't even tell him off. "Not everyone lucks out like Percy and gets awesome stepparents, you know."

"Then maybe you'll be pleased to know that I also suspected Persephone, and dropped some implicating hints to Demeter. She was not best pleased that Isobel was dragged into a Chimera attack. Actually, I'd say she was pretty pissed," Annabeth said happily. "I don't think she's going to get away with it."

As if on cue, Alecto chose that moment to materialise in the apartment, dressed in her full power-suit regalia. She was definitely in lawyer mode.

Sally blinked at the new arrival and clutched her pearls briefly in shock at the sudden appearance before sweeping over and picking up the plate of cookies. "Uh, hello. Would you like a cookie?" she asked Alecto. Never hurt to be hospitable to someone who was so blatantly Olympian in origin. Poseidon had made that very clear. You never knew who was visiting to test your hospitality.

Alecto looked briefly down at the plate, then slung her briefcase onto the back of the armchair Percy was sitting in, all but concussing him. She snapped the briefcase open and rummaged around inside. "Thank you, but I find human foodstuffs in no way satisfying or necessary," she said briskly, extracting a roll of parchment tied up with a black silk ribbon and sealed with black sealing wax. A skull insignia had been pressed into the wax as it dried. Alecto broke the seal and undid the ribbon, clearing her throat before continuing. "Miss Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and Mister Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, are hereby called as witnesses in the case of The Underworld versus… Well, it's Queen." She cackled to herself. "That should definitely liven things up! We haven't had a ruckus this big down there since Hades kidnapped her!" Her eyes travelled over to Nico and her face broke into a sneer when she saw Isobel using him as a pillow. "Nico, get up. You're coming too."

"No formal summons for me, then?" Nico bit out, scowling at her.

Alecto sniffed, stowing the scroll back into her briefcase. "Of course not. The Underworld is bound to ask formally and politely for the attendance of the children of the other gods at its judicial affairs, but as far as you're concerned you do as your father says and like it. Besides, he's throwing you a whole hearing! One is wife is going to be upset about for _centuries_. So when I say get up, I mean it. Get up!"

"Percy and Nico are quite ill," Sally protested. "Can this not wait?"

"If this could wait," Alecto said, punctuating her words by slamming the briefcase closed and forcefully clicking the locks closed, "then I would not be here. Stand clear, please. We're leaving." She tucked her briefcase under her arm, snapped both of her fingers and Percy, Annabeth, Nico and herself simply vanished, the demigods in mid-protest.

Sally gaped, suddenly realising she was still holding the blue cookies in her hand and set them down gently on the table. Well. There was something you didn't see every day, she thought, clearing her throat. Well, not unless, a very long time ago, you had seen through the Mist and found yourself in love with a Greek god, of course, in which case this kind of thing was pretty commonplace, actually. Nico's disappearance had left Isobel stunned. Without his lap to lie on she had fallen to the couch.

"I guess it's just you and me then, sweetie," Sally said weakly. "How are you at cleaning up after two teenage boys and an oatmeal bath?"


	4. Chapter 4

**So. Sorry this took so long. It's just that I really didn't know how to end it, but I knew that I **_**had **_**to end it before I embarked on anything else and so it stalled all of my writing. However, now this is up and the story is complete (not that I expect anyone remembers/cares apart from me, and I don't blame you) I can post the first chapter of my new fic tomorrow night. So, if you remember me, enjoy or, of course, don't. If you don't remember me then just sit there and scratch your head and go, "Huh?" when you see this. **

**Happy Monday!**

**Marzipan.**

"Seriously?" Percy gasped out through chattering teeth. "I get summoned to the Underworld in my freaking _pyjamas_?"

Nico surreptitiously clutched the blanket he had managed to bring with him tighter around himself in case Percy made a move to grab it off him. "At least you're wearing socks," he muttered, curling his bare toes into the grey sand beneath them. "Even I think this is like walking across tundra and as you all so kindly like to remind me, I'm kind of an icicle."

"Yup, just a degree or two away from being a corpse," Percy reminded him chirpily, grinning. He shivered again and looked around the large cavern they were right in the middle of, which was so perfectly semi-spherical it looked like an upturned pudding bowl. Dark tunnels led in from all directions around the room and the ceiling was lost in the gloom. Percy spotted a bright green torch burning in a bracket on the wall and scooted over to it hopefully, but it was crackling and spitting and actually sucking heat _from _the surroundings. He guessed he should have expected as much given that it was Underworld fire.

"Didn't Alecto say that there was supposed to be some kind of hearing?" Annabeth asked uncertainly. She drew her dagger warily, swapping it between her hands over and over pretty much subconsciously as her eyes scanned the multiple entrances that would allow all kinds of nasty things to get a jump on them if she wasn't vigilant.

"We're okay; nothing bad will happen to us down here," Nico said, aiming for more confidence than he felt. "This is where I belong." Not that his sense of belonging had had much effect on the perils he had faced down here in the past — overzealous ghosts, the occasional monster fresh from clawing its way out of Tartarus and looking for a demigod to snack on before attempting to wreak havoc on the world above et cetera — but Percy and Annabeth didn't need to know that right now. It would probably put them a little bit on edge to know that, unlike Percy and being under the sea, being a son of Hades guaranteed you little to no protection from the domain you were supposed to call your home. The realm of darkness was always going to be just that — dark — no matter who your father might be.

"Just correct me if I'm wrong but didn't your dad lock me in his dungeon and then summon a skeleton army to try and kill me the last time I was down here?" Percy said, immediately coupling onto Nico's lie and throwing back the curtain to reveal what was behind it.

Nico huffed an irritated sigh. "Fine. Nothing bad will happen to _me _down here," he said. "You two will probably die gruesome deaths but don't worry; I'll survive to tell your tale." His last sentiment was ruined by a fit of itching on his back that he had to twist awkwardly and very nearly impossibly to reach.

"Oh, well, if _you'll _survive," Annabeth muttered, still not sheathing her dagger.

"Hey, Percy wanted the no-bullshit version," Nico said, shrugging. "I did _try_ to sugar coat it."

Suddenly, from out of the tunnel opposite them, eerie bugling sounded, the fanfare echoing harshly around the chamber. Out of the tunnel strode Hades, flanked by a dozen skeleton warriors, two of which were still trumpeting his arrival to make doubly sure it was as conspicuous as possible. Beside him trotted Alecto, still in her suit and carrying the briefcase from earlier. As she came to a halt a lectern rose out of the ground made from solid obsidian, propelling her about an extra foot in the air. She opened her briefcase and began shuffling papers meticulously.

There was no fanfare to announce the party that was emerging from the other tunnel. Instead, loud birdsong wound its way into the chamber, swelling to a crescendo as Persephone sashayed out in a long dress cut daringly low at the top and slit dangerously high at both thighs. The dress floated out behind her as she walked, a swirl of spring colours playing across the material like it was liquid rather than cloth. She had a tiara on her head, but not the silver and emerald one she wore when she was reigning in the Underworld — this one was made entirely out of wildflowers. She had no entourage but between the birdsong and her very strength of presence her entrance had been more impressive than that of her husband. She had no one to represent her, it seemed; as she stepped further into the chamber a lectern like a tree trunk covered in a flowering vine sprung from the ground. She looked over at Nico and curled her lip in distaste.

"Persephone," Hades greeted curtly, yet with a hint of worry and panic in his voice. Nico narrowed his eyes, trying to work out what the dynamic was here. Was it possible that Hades _didn't _want this entire proceeding to take place? He seemed reluctant and almost timid in his wife's presence, ready to try and mollify her at every turn.

Persephone only puckered her lips in reply to her husband and cleared her throat, a raised eyebrow and strong body language demanding him to begin. Hades conjured a throne behind and to the left of Alecto and sat down in it regally, although he kept his eyes on the floor and away from his queen.

"I call this trial to order," Alecto said as soon as Hades was settled. "Her Majesty Persephone, Queen of the Underworld and the goddess of springtime, is summoned before us today accused of infecting Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, with a sickness known as the chickenpox. How do you plead?"

Persephone scowled then looked affronted. "Oh, please," she spat, folding her arms across her chest. "This is nonsense. Are we just going to _forget _the little incident where Hera cursed Heracles with madness so strong that he killed his children, all so she could make him feel so guilty that he would die by his own hand? Or the time she sent _snakes _after him to strangle him as he slept when he was just a defenceless baby? Shall I mention that little incident where Semele spontaneously combusted because of Hera? I could mention Hera forcing Io to live life as a tormented cow, but if you want other examples that aren't Hera taking revenge on her husband's lovers, then there's the fact that Apollo and Artemis totally slaughtered Niobe's kids because Niobe had the nerve to mock their mom for only having managed to give birth to two babies. Then, when Niobe got all upset about it, Zeus turned her _to stone_.

"Then you've got that messy business with Artemis and Actaeon, the peeping tom, as well as the whole Tiresias and Athena debacle. Both of those incidents, of course, really emphasise the fact that goddesses should invest in some kind of shower curtain. Perhaps I'll invent one and sell it on Hephaestus TV. I've always thought about going into infomercials… But yes, anyway, what about Asclepius becoming so skilled at healing that Zeus declared that he must die? Arachne? Cassandra's curse? I could go on all day but my point is that _they_ both got off lightly and I think they should be thanking me, not accusing me. It could have been much worse for them."

"Huh," Percy said. "You know what? She's kind of right."

"Amen to that," Nico muttered, though grudgingly, refusing to accept that being covered in forty thousand scabs was considered being let off lightly. He looked up at his father and cocked his head slightly, still frowning in confusion. He hated not getting what was going on.

"None of those were direct attacks on children of the Underworld!" Alecto snapped back at her, banging her first on the lectern. "As such, we call for justice!"

"Do you?" Persephone demanded with a haughty quirk of an eyebrow. She wasn't talking to Alecto, rather looking behind her at her husband, her arms still folded across her chest and a foot encased in a pump tapping impatiently.

"Well, my dear," Hades began awkwardly, clearing his throat several times. "This is a very unpleasant thing that you've done. I know you don't always get along with my mortal children, but—"

"Would you rather I sent snakes to kill him?" Persephone said, cutting him off and revisiting her earlier point about Hera. "Because I totally could, you know. I may not be Queen of All Heaven, Queen of the _gods _and whatever other titles she likes to shove down everyone's throat but I think I could handle a pair of snakes."

As she finished, the last syllable turned into a hiss so like a snake that Annabeth raised her dagger again, looking around for approaching serpents. Persephone laughed at her.

"I hear that you, girl, have played a huge part in accusing me. Children of Wisdom should really be renamed children of _butting in_." "You'll say that to me, but I'd like to see you say that to my mom's face," Annabeth said angrily. "Wisdom trumps _flowers _any day of the week."

Persephone's eyes blazed a bright yellow, bordering on gold. Suddenly, a cloud of lurid pollen appeared and enveloped Annabeth's head, swirling around her in an allergen maelstrom. Annabeth immediately began to sneeze violently and hack a cough to try and clear her burning throat. Her eyes began to stream and soon her sleeves were soaked with the tears she kept angrily swiping from her cheeks.

"Pollen comes from flowers," Persephone said with a satisfied smile. "I'll be interested to see how _wise _you can be with sinus cavities full off mucus. Congratulations, little girl. Welcome to what I believe you mortals call hayfever, most definitely a part of _my_ domain."

"Enough," Hades said, the single word enough to blacken the pollen to ash and cause it to fall harmlessly to the floor. "Persephone, you are not helping your cause."

Annabeth took a deep breath and rubbed vigorously at her itching eyes until her vision began to clear. Nico wordlessly handed her a tissue he found in the pocket of his pyjamas bottoms, wrinkling his nose in distaste at her snotty, teary demeanour. When Annabeth lowered her hands her eyes were red and bloodshot and still leaking a little. Her throat was working overtime as she struggled to quell the itch there and her sinuses were pounding. She took the tissue gratefully and blew her nose hard, cursing her luck. As if Hera and incontinent cows weren't a big enough problem, now she was supposed to deal with Persephone and attack of the pollen. She could almost deal with the goddesses' retribution if it were something big and massive that would be over all at once but they seemed to favour throwing little, insidious things at her in a constant barrage. Not fun.

"There is no case against me!" Persephone said, turning back to her husband and throwing her arms in the air in frustration. "Did you not just here the precedent I gave? The immortals have _always _punished mortals. If the Queen of Heaven herself can wreak vengeance on her husband's bastard offspring, why can't I? I didn't even _kill _him. Not one little bit!"

Alecto sighed and began slowly stacking her papers back into her case. There was no legal way to solve the domestic disputes of the Underworld's King and Queen — they had been at each other's throats on and off for aeons after all. Not only that, but Persephone was right; the precedent _did _support her defence and not Alecto's prosecution. She knew where she wasn't wanted and snapped her briefcase closed, hefting it from the lectern and vanishing from sight, taking the podium with her.

"Please understand my dove," Hades said, getting up from his throne and moving over to her, reaching up to her lectern to take her hands. "My brother Poseidon is most aggrieved at what you've done to the Jackson brat."

"Standing right here," Percy said, waving at them and being completely ignored.

"Since when did you care what your family thinks?" Persephone said huffily, pouting at her husband.

"Since I began to build new relations with them," Hades said. "Since _my _son, the one you have inflicted this vile-looking mortal illness on, prepared the way for me to take my place on Olympus, a place I've been waiting thousands of years to achieve. I have to respect them the same way they now have to respect me. And Poseidon says that there must be a trial. He demands justice; he's overly fond of this particular irritating bastard of his."

"Still here," Percy said dryly, by now jumping up and down on the spot slightly to try and stay warm. His arms were wrapped around his torso.

"Well, there has been a trial and I think I've been acquitted," Persephone said smugly. "You can't punish me for simply doing what goddesses older, wiser and more powerful than I have been doing for millennia."

Hades shoulders sagged a little and he shrugged in agreement. Persephone was right, of course, but that didn't mean it would be easy to explain to Poseidon that he thought so. Of course he wasmad at his wife for giving Nico this curious pox but then again, the stepson/stepmother dynamic between them had never been strong and had often ended in Nico's transmogrification at the hands of Persephone. This was just the next step in the ongoing battle between them and, in all honesty, it made him weary. Not that he would ever admit to that, being a god, but the whole situation between his wife and son just made him _tired. _The constant bickering and fighting, the constant whining from his wife, the perpetual angry silences from his son every time Nico thought that he was taking Persephone's side in it all had just got to be too much. Why could they not just get on? Interfering with trials and hearings would probably only make the entire thing worse, make each side resent the other more and more. He vowed, from now on, to remain completely neutral in the entire messy situation and take no one's side. It seemed by far the safest and most sensible option.

When Hades didn't reply, Persephone's lectern sank bank into the ground and she stepped off just before it disappeared as if she were doing nothing more complex than getting off an escalator. She beamed triumphantly, her expression widening and becoming a more malicious smirk when she saw Nico.

Persephone slipped a pair of designer sunglasses over her eyes. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have springtime to get back to. There are magazines piling up on my sun lounger and a whole jug of cosmos I haven't even put little paper umbrellas in yet. Goodby—"

"Not so fast!" said a swirl of grain materialising on the other side of the cavern. Out of it stepped Demeter and her eyes were angry. "I don't care if this trial finds you innocent, my child; I am your mother and I can dole out an entirely different branch of justice."

"Over a son of Poseidon and… _that_?" Persephone asked, curling her lip as she pointed at Nico. "Mother, why would you even get involved? It's none of your business."

"But Isobel _is _my business," Demeter fumed, her nostrils flaring. "How dare you imitate me to manipulate one of my children into doing your bidding? Did you even think about the Chimera, about the danger you were sending her into?"

"You told me you were sick of looking of your demigod children because of the stupid disease they had!" Persephone said, her mouth falling open in shock. "I just assumed you wouldn't care."

"Well I do!" Demeter said, drawing herself up to her full height. "Isobel was wandering around the city _by herself! _In her _pyjamas! _That's not fitting for a child of mine to start with. And let's not even get into the part where you imitated me."

Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother, chill. It was just a little joke. Harmless fun. Everything turned out okay in the end."

"No thanks to you," Annabeth said. "Isobel would have died if we weren't there."

"Soooo dramatic," Persephone said dismissively, rolling her eyes. "She would have been _fine_."

"She was eight!" Percy said. "And unarmed! The Chimera would have had her for an appetiser."

"I have heard enough," Demeter said, putting her hands on her hips. "You are grounded, young lady, you hear me? There will be no enjoying springtime, no flowers, no rolling pastures dotted with newborn lambs and _definitely_ no sitting on beaches in Honolulu. You are going to accompany me at all times as I move throughout the world of agriculture and cereal and what's more you will like it!"

"But mother—"

"No buts!" shrieked Demeter. "You have been spoiled. I've let you get away with having nature spirits clean your room for too long. I felt sorry for you because you had to live half the year with Hades but it seems to me you're pretty comfortable in my brother's realm. Perhaps too comfortable if you're willing to send a young demigod to their death for the purpose of a practical joke. And don't you _dare _try telling me that Hera does it so it must be okay. My older sister has always had a vindictive streak a mile wide and I swore I would never pass that on to any of _my _children. I had to share a room with her before she married Zeus. She was _always _breaking my stuff."

"Mother, look, sometimes bad things happen to good demigods," Persephone said desperately with a limp shrug.

"Yes; and sometimes bad things happen to you," Demeter said sternly. "I'm sorry it's come to this, Persephone, but I think it's time to teach you a lesson." She waved her hand at Percy and Nico and they were immediately bathed in a soothing, greenish light that seemed to gently vacuum the chickenpox from their skin. When the light faded they were perfectly healed, but what looked like a small tornado made entirely out of chickenpox scabs and glowing faintly green was hovering above them. It tore across the room towards Persephone, who shrieked and clawed at it as it descended on her. Demeter looked grim and it enveloped her daughter's face.

When cloud cleared, Persephone was covered in Nico and Percy's chickenpox. Nico choked back a laugh as he ran his hands up and down his chickenpox-free arms. It was almost as if they'd never been there. Percy, too, was examining every square inch of his skin he could see to check that the scabs had vanished from his body too.

Persephone whipped off her mirrored sunglasses and checked her reflection in them, unable to suppress a howl of horror. "Mother! What have you done? I am a _goddess_; you can't do this to me!"

"And _I _am a goddess," Demeter said loudly. "One of those older and more powerful ones you told me could get away with anything. Besides, from what I understand, this isn't permanent. You will be as right as rain soon enough. I'm sorry it had to come to this but it was the only way you'd learn your lesson."

"It's _itchy!_" Persephone moaned in horror scratching at her arms. She shuddered with revulsion at the feel of the scabs under her nails and squealed, stamping her feet on the floor.

"It's no more than you deserve," Demeter said severely. "You have a lesson to learn. Now, there is a field of wheat in Iowa that it just beginning its seasonal cycle. I think we'll pay it a visit."

"Mom—" Persephone's protest was cut off by both of them vanishing into a swirl of grain.

There was momentary silence in the cavern as the remaining occupants stared in disbelief at the spot the two goddesses had just been standing on. Hades was the first to speak.

"Well… I must say, I didn't know my sister had that in her," he confessed, blinking. "Hera has always been by far my scariest sibling, more so than any others. Sure, Zeus might try to blow you to atoms with a lightning bolt or two but at least you can see that coming. Hera, well, she's sneaky and deceptive. Much more subtle than Zeus _and _she knows how to bide her time. That is much scarier than temporarily being blown to pieces. Demeter, however…" he trailed off, clearly still a little shocked and not entirely sure how to end the sentence, yet also looking a little relieved that it hadn't had to be him that had passed such harsh judgement on Persephone. It was much better to have his wife's anger directed at someone else whilst still having Nico avenged. It had actually worked out rather well.

"So the trial's over?" Annabeth asked, sheathing her dagger and rearranging her cardigan over it. "Because I was in the middle of something."

Hades seemed to be too distracted by his good fortune to notice Annabeth's rudeness; instead he nodded vaguely at her and, with a wave of his arm, sent the three perfectly-healthy demigods back to the surface and the warmth of Percy's apartment.


End file.
